Compensation Matters.

It is impossible to put a true value on all that Siôn Jenkins has lost since he was first wrongly accused of murder. He was the victim of a legal system which got it wrong. Yet despite the depth of the suffering inflicted on him, and even though his case is recognised as a major miscarriage of justice, the system is now doing its utmost to deny him compensation.

The Home Office stands by its shameful decision to limit the compensation paid to victims of miscarriage of justice.

There is no justifiable argument for this refusal by the legal system to acknowledge the victims of injustice. Nothing can erase the moral imperative for it to acknowledge the enormity of what has happened to Siôn Jenkins, and others who, like him, have been wrongly convicted.

Priorities

In August 2006, the Daily Telegraph ran the headline " Abandoned police force merger plans cost £11m ". The article reports the national cost generated by the Home Office's abortive plan to merge a number of police forces. Sussex and Surrey had been one such merger proposal. When the scheme foundered, police forces were able to claim compensation for the wasted time they had invested.

The biggest bill sent to the Home Office was Sussex's claim for £1m.

It is breathtaking to note that a bureaucratic bungle can readily justify such a claim for compensation, while the issue of a human life destroyed by injustice can be the subject of debate .

One day Sussex police - and the Home Office - will have to make reparation to Siôn Jenkins.

Compensation has been in the news recently.

Stephen Downing, whose conviction for murder was quashed as unsafe after 27 years spent in prison, has now received his final compensation payment from the Home Office after being awarded an interim payment of £250,000.

Michael O'Brien received £300,000 from South Wales police. He will also receive £480,000 from the Home Office, making a total of £780,000.Like Siôn Jenkins, he was wrongly convicted for murder and imprisoned for many years. Yet the South Wales police insist that they admit no liability in the case and will not be making any apology.

How's that for a mixed message?

Their bizarre statement marks the point at which legal nicety and real life part company.The fact that the payment is seen as the highest-ever of its kind only emphasises the point.

The need to appear to be right - even when patently in the wrong - is a curious feature of the legal system.

What price justice?

Sussex police are desperate not to pay compensation to Siôn Jenkins. After all, in the past three years they have already had to pay out substantial compensation to the family of the late James Ashley, and to Linda Watson and her daughter. The family of the late Jay Abatan are also due compensation for their losses at the hands of Sussex police. For a police force which is the fifth most poorly funded in the country, the prosect of handing over any more payments in the glare of publicity must be intolerable. The force was therefore very prompt to submit its own recent compensation claim for £1m. in respect of the on-off reorganisation of police forces in the country.

The Jenkins case has already cost an estimated £10m. of public money, squandered on a prosecution case which was generally regarded as weak from the outset, yet pursued to almost incredible lengths. There were three very costly and highly-publicised prosecution cases. They were all flawed, inconsistent and ultimately unsuccessful.

With more than a little help from elements within Sussex police , the media, Rottweiler- like, could not resist the impulse to savage their victim. Enough misinformation was tossed around to destroy a man's reputation and cause immense personal damage, but one truth survived the onslaught.

Siôn Jenkins did not kill Billie- Jo.

The concerns of the Home Secretary.

The Home Secretary wishes, we are told, to reflect public opinion by tipping the scales of justice in favour of the victims of crime. It is reasonable to ask if he is equally concerned that there are victims of the criminal justice system itself, individuals whose lives have been totally disrupted by the miscarriages of justice they have suffered. According to The Home Secretary himself, the Home Office is not fit for purpose: its stance on this issue would certainly bear out his view.

When Billie-Jo Jenkins was murdered in February 1997, there was a Conservative government and Michael Howard was the Home Secretary.
When Siôn Jenkins was wrongly convicted of murder in July 1998 the Labour party had been in power for a year and Jack Straw was the Home Secretary.
When the Criminal Cases Review Commission started examining his case during 2001, David Blunkett was the Home Secretary.
When Siôn Jenkins was awaiting his first retrial, following the quashing of his conviction in 2004, Charles Clarke was the Home Secretary.
Today, as Siôn Jenkins waits for compensation after enduring a total of three murder trials and two appeals, John Reid is the Home Secretary.

Since Billie-Jo was murdered there have been two general elections, five Home Secretaries, and disarray at the Home Office. Political careers have soared and foundered.At a more local level the same is true of careers within Sussex police. Now talk of reorganisation is in the air for both institutions.

The demands of justice, meanwhile, are constant and unchanging . Siôn Jenkins and others in his situation are just left to get on with their dismantled lives . After the battle to overturn a wrongful conviction, they face a further battle to claim what is morally and legally their entitlement.

It is now more than eight months since the law cleared Siôn Jenkins of the charge of murder, and by doing so, acknowledged that a major miscarriage of justice had been perpetuated for almost a decade.

Meanwhile, John Reid's account to Parliament of how compensation claims are dealt with reveals a bureaucratic indifference to the human suffering caused by the mistakes of a fallible legal system.